The Turnbo Manuscripts

by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925

Many of the awful crimes perpetrated in war times should not be lost
sight of. They should be kept in memory so long as the United States exists
as a nation not for the purpose of keeping up an enmity between the sections
but to show future generations the great extremes the Civil War reached
before it was brought to a close.

William L. Brown, formerly of Franklin township Marion County Ark. now
of Holdensville Indian Territory was born on the farm on the south bank
of the river where Keesees Ferry was established in 1876. Mr. Browns
mother was a Miss Sally Coker a daughter of William Coker who was a son
of Buck Coker. William Coker died on Crooked Creek in the early days and
was buried in the grave yard at the mouth of Georges Creek 5 miles
above Yellville. William Browns father was Tom Brown son of Girard
Leiper Brown who was killed on the Arkansas River. Miss Sally Coker and
Tom Brown were married in the latter forties and settled the land where
William L. Brown was born. Girard Leiper Browns wife was a Miss Katie
Coker daughter of Buck Coker. There is a glade north of Elbow Creek in Taney
County, Mo. called Katies Prairie which derived its name from her. There
is a rough hollow just below the mouth of Trimbles Creek which empties into
the river at the lower end of the Tom Brown farm known as Beecas Branch
which was named for Miss Becca Brown a daughter of Aunt Katies. Many years
ago Aunt Becca lived in a small log house which stood on the bank of the
river at the mouth of this hollow. She died on the old Few Anderson farm
and was buried in the grave yard opposite the Panther Bottom. Aunt Katie
her mother died on her sons Tom Brown farm one morning at sun rise
in the month of December 1856. The house in which she died stood at the
foot of the bluff at the upper end of the place her body received interment
in the Allin Trimble grave yard. Tom Brown died in the month of March 1853.
Two years previous to his death he selected a spot of ground on the slope
of a hill on the west side of Trimbles Creek from where he lived and cut
the figure of a man on a post oak tree and told his family and friends that
when his time come for him to pass from this shore to the other that he
desired to be buried under this tree, and after his death his request was
carried out according to his wishes. His remains were the first interment
in this cemetery. This old time burying ground is known to this day as the
Allin Trimble grave yard. After the death of Tom Brown his widow married
Allin Trimble and he raised William Brown from childhood. Mr. Trimble died
in 1889 and in 1901 Mrs. Trimble went with her son William Brown to Holdensville
Indian territory where she died in the month of December 1902. William L.
Brown married Miss Lizzie B. Whitlock daughter of William C. Whitlock who
lived 3 miles north of Yellville Ark. one day in May 1895 Mrs. Brown gave
the writer a history of her fathers death in war times which is a sad story.
She said that one night in 1863 a party of men on horseback came to their
house near midnight and taken her father out of the house. They also made
Jess Whitlock a 12 years old brother of mine go with them. The men claimed
that they would not hurt them but after they had left the house some distance
Jass heard the men tell father that he might prepare himself for death for
they intended to kill him, and while father was begging the men not to kill
him Jass made a dash for liberty and escaped but he was so bad scared and
had ran so far without stopping that he did not come back home till late
the following day. My poor mother grieved and weeped until the break of
day when she started out into the woods to search for father for she had
good reason to believe that the cold hearted men who took him off had killed
him and it might be that they had killed Jass too. I was too young to be
of any advantage to mother in helping her hunt for father. Mother tramped
the wild woods till 12 oclock without finding any trace of him,, she
gave up in despair she aid not know what to do. But she went out again and
hunted all around and come back crying and wearied down in trying to find
him. She believed that he was dead that he was lying some where in the woods
with no one present to care for his body. It was hard to give him up in
the way he had to go and maybe her poor boy was dead too. It seemed that
her heart would break but after a while she grew more calm and she said
she would make another search for him. At this moment Jass come but he was
so badly frightened that he was almost crazy. But thank God he was alive.
After his excitement began to subside he told us what he heard the men tell
father and where the locality was they were at and how he ran away from
the. My poor distracted mother could wait no longer and she started out
alone again and following the directions that Jass gave her she succeeded
in discovering the dead body of my father lying some distance from the house.
He had been shot the third time one ball took effect in the temple one entered
his mouth and the other in the shoulder his head was terribly mangled and
his face was all covered with blood. My dear, dear mother was a large woman
and my father was a small man. Mother said that it seemed that she was not
able to bear up under the terrible affliction and sorrow that had fell her
lot and that the tears from her eyes were so free that it seemed that she
could wade in them, it seemed as though she would sink into a great dark
gulf. Then she thought she must not give up and she prayed to God for help
and finishing her prayer she rose up off of her knees and felt more composed,
and more able to face the distress and great calamity that had visited her
home. She could not bear to leave the body to seek help and with a resolution
born of the moment she raised the lifeless form in her arms and carried
it toward the house until she was compelled to lay it down from exhaustion.
But after a short rest she raised the body in her arms again and went on
with it toward home until she was forced to stop and lay it down again and
take another resting spell. This repeated until she was in sight of the
house when she met Cinda Stinnette a colored woman who belonged to Dave
Stinnette and the kind hearted black woman assisted mother to carry my dead
father into the house and helped to prepare the remains for burial. It was
impossible then in that neighborhood to procure a coffin and mother placed
the body in a box, and we were all in such a stress for clothes that mother
was compelled to enclose him in the box in the same suit he wore when he
was shot to death. My mother and a few other women and we children buried
him on Lees Mountain 1 ½ miles from home.